Fallout: After the Bombs
by ShivaLiszt
Summary: The story of the Sole Survivor happened - but not quite like some tell it. There weren't just two people who eventually made it out of Vault 111, but closer to thirty. The Minutemen was not rebuilt by a single man, but of a team of many.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1:**

An alarm clock blared and cut through the cozy darkness. A hand emerged from blankets and started to fumble around, searching for the snooze switch.

Saturday! The day of the big game! Andy forced her eyes to open and stared at the ceiling for a minute before forcing herself out of the warm, comfortable cocoon of blankets.

Not her big game, her cousin's, but she had to get up at 7 AM for it regardless. If she didn't, Jonathan would be disappointed, and Andy didn't want to let him down on one of her few weekends home from college. So out of bed, it was.

Andy's parents had died years before. Her father was an architect, her mother a biologist, so there was no other option than to go to college, damn the cost. Jeff, Andy's uncle, had seen to that. Jeff's wife, Andy's mother's sister, had died in the same car wreck that had killed her parents, so it was just the three of them left: Jeff, Jonathan, and Andy.

Jeff was a good dad, always made sure that Jonathan and Andy could come to him for anything. He'd taken them to their high school games, made sure that they were doing well in school, all while working for Mass Fusion. Really, he was a better dad to Andy than her own parents had been even with how busy his job kept him.

Breakfast was quick. Jeff and Jonathan were already awake. The sweet fragrance of coffee drew Andy immediately to the kitchen counter to pour a cup.

"Good morning, Mistress Andromeda!" Chirped the Jeeves, the Mr. Handy that Jeff had won in a work raffle the previous year. "How would you like your eggs this morning?"

"Over easy, Jeeves. Is there toast?" Andy replied. She hated her full name, but the Mr. Handy was programmed to be formal and she had resigned herself to being Andromeda to it.

"Of course, Mistress. By the orange juice," the Mr. Handy replied.

Jonathan was practically bouncing in his seat when Andy sat down.

"Ready to play today?" She asked him.

"More than!" He replied. "Shawna Reynolds is going to be watching today, and I promised her I'd score a home run just for her."

"Shawna, Shawna, Shawna," Andy said, trying to remember which one this was. "Is this the redhead from Concord?"

"Yes!" Jonathan practically popped out of his seat, gesturing with his fork. "She's the one! I'm going to ask her to the Winter Formal next month."

Jeff peered over his paper at the two of them. "Jonathan, don't stab your fork around like that. You'll take out someone's eye."

"Yes, sir," Jonathan replied, not at all subdued by the reproach.

The rest of breakfast was spent drinking coffee, reading news, and listening to all of the updates on Jonathan's school, baseball team, and friends.

Around 8, while Jonathan was busy getting dressed for his game and Andy was giving Jeff an update on her classes, a Vault-Tec representative stopped by. Jeff dealt with the man while Andy perused a book she'd brought with her from the Boston Library - _The Herbal Apothecary_. She looked up when the front door closed.

"What did he want?" She asked. "A million dollars per person who wants a place in the vault?"

Jeff shook his head. "No. Apparently they're giving out reserved spots. I managed to get you a place. He listed you as an adult female," Jeff scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. "I think he may have assumed that you were my wife."

"Oh." Andy replied. "Eww, Jeff."

He made a face back at her. "How do you think I felt?" Turning contemplative, he continued. " At least this way, if there is war and you're nearby, you've got a chance at being saved. It's a damned sight better than one of those Pulowski trash cans. If there is a nuclear detonation, it'll take at least 30 years for the radiation to clear up enough to come out, 50 years to do it without it being hazardous to health."

He looked at Andy, catching her gaze intently. "If we went into that vault today, at my age, I'll die in there before it's time to come out. Jonathan and you will be aged before those doors open. Realistically, we would live out our lives in there."

"Jeff, is there something you're not telling me?"

"One of my college friends in the military told me that things are getting tense. We met at a North Boston dive for happy hour yesterday. He," Jeff paused and licked his lips before continuing. "He said that there were unconfirmed sightings of Chinese submarines off the coast of California. If I may be frank, the fact that the baseball field is close to the Vault is a good thing. If it weren't, I would have insisted that we skip it today.. That Jonathan do something else instead today."

"Why would your college buddy mention anything to you? You're a civilian, and that's got to be classified information." Andy said in bewilderment. "Are you sure he wasn't lying? What if he was told to tell you that to see who you tell? They've done that before to people with that damned 'Loose Lips Sink Ships' campaign."

Jeff shook his head. "He looked haunted. Like it was the last beer he'd ever have. I think he was trying to let those he could know quietly. Or at least those who wouldn't panic. You should have seen his face, Andy. He was haunted by it, and it wasn't an act. Jim would never lie to me about that kind of thing."

"Even if something like that happened - there would be an alarm first, right?"

Jeff nodded. "Yes. We'd have at least a fifteen minute warning. Twenty, if we're lucky."

"Well, let's hope we're lucky and it doesn't happen at all."

The conversation was cut short when Jonathan came into the living room. "Are you guys ready?"

Andy nodded and smiled. "Yup. Cooler packed with sandwiches, beer, water, and snacks."

"Great." Said Jeff. "Lets' head out."

* * *

The three of them loaded up the black Corvega with the drinks cooler, lawn chairs, and Jonathan's gear before backing out of their driveway. Andy made sure to grab her backpack with her textbooks. She'd gotten in the habit of carrying a backpack instead of a purse. It was a long commute from her apartment to CIT and carrying a purse and all of the books she needed just wasn't practical.

Jeff's friend's prediction was proven right. Just before 9:30, right after Jonathan hit a ball straight to the right field right past a defender, sirens started in the distance.

Andy just looked at her uncle's stricken face before screaming at the top of her lungs for Jonathan to get to the car. It took ten minutes to drive close enough to the vault for them to get out and run. Ten harrowing, long minutes as they all waited for a flash of light while Jeff swerved around people and sped past other slower or parked cars. As soon as they couldn't drive anymore, they jumped out. Jeff took a few precious seconds to pop the trunk on the Corvega and pull out a duffel bag and put it on his back. Andy grabbed her backpack while he did that. And then they ran. Hard. Staying with Jeff, Andy and Jonathan kept their eyes on the top of the hill that was their target. It only took a few seconds to get past the guards at the fence who wouldn't let everyone in. People were screaming at the soldiers, and when they got to the top of the hill, Andy heard the sound of the minigun that a soldier in power armor held spin up and start to fire.

Breathless, they followed the directions of the soldiers to a blue-painted platform at the top of the hill. Altogether, there were ten of them on the platform. As soon as they reached the platform, Andy saw a soldier hit a massive red button through the window of a trailer nearby.

"You're lucky," a soldier shouted at them from nearby. "You're the last group we're sending down." He ducked and held his helmet down on his head as a large boom sounded and the world flashed bright.

"Don't look at it!" Jeff shouted at his son and niece, and flattened himself to the floor of the platform. Andy and Jonathan followed suit, getting as low as they could. Right as the doors to the surface boomed shut above them, Andy heard a massive blast of wind hitting the world above them.

It happened. The bombs fell. The War had finally begun.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

* * *

Gears rumbled and cranked below them as the platform descended ever deeper and deeper. Jonathan looked shell-shocked, still wearing his baseball uniform. Jeff looked grim. Their neighbors from Sanctuary Hills had mixed reactions. Mr. and Mrs. Callahan had their heads up with serious looks on their faces. They both had military training if Andy remembered correctly. Mrs. Heady behind them, looked as though she were ready to have a stroke at any moment. Her husband had died some years earlier. It was a wonder how she had gotten herself to the vault in the small amount of time the warnings afforded. The gears cranked on and on, lowering them further and further. Andy idly wondered how many feet deep the vault was built into the earth.

The platform descended ever deeper and deeper into the earth until a room became visible from the floor and slowly unveiled itself. With a resounding clang, the platform came to a halt and the protective grating moved aside.

Except for the raw metal, everything was painted bright yellow and blue. Vault-Tec employees called out to the newest residents, directing them to step off of the elevator platform. She even heard the chirpy slogan called out, but it didn't sound so positive now.

The newest residents of Vault 111 slowly made their way forward in shock. Most of the residents moved forward to the decontamination room as directed by the doctors, while Andy and Jeff were stopped by a few Vault-Tec employees who gave them forms to fill out and check their bags into storage. A temporary measure until they could finish decontamination, they were assured. Andy noted as the backpack and duffel were put into cardboard boxes which were then placed in lockers, the small keys given to them.

Andy held onto the key like it was her life, fist balling around it. After thinking for a few moments, Andy threaded it onto a leather bracelet that she had on her wrist. A Vault-Tec employee directed her to a new line that led deeper into the vault. She asked for a size small as matching blue jumpsuits were handed to each of them along with sturdy leather boots. They walked down a tunnel filled with large wands that emitted humming sounds. Jeff turned around handed her his locker key.

"Hold onto this for me until we're done with the decontamination." He told her. Andy added it onto her bracelet turned keyring.

"This way to the decontamination pods." A man with a lab coat and clipboard instructed. They turned left at the end of the hallway. Through the open door to a decontamination bay Andy could see people changing into vault suits and climbing into the massive pods. She shivered at the temperature and held her arms around herself for warmth.

'Around 8 pods per bay,' Andy noted to herself. 'Five bays in total. But why so many? They should be able to cycle everyone through decontamination, so they should only need a few.'

A man in a lab coat directed Andy to a privacy screen where she could change into her new jumpsuit. Stretchy, comfortable, formfitting, and lots of pockets, she decided. After changing and slipping the new boots on, she went back into the middle of the room. Putting a few things like her watch and jewelry into the pockets of the suit, her uncle caught her eye in the middle of the room.

"Something isn't right here," he whispered to her when she got close enough. "There shouldn't be this many decontamination pods for a one-time event. And where are the exits to the living quarters? The layout of this vault is all wrong." His brow furrowed. "The vault layout I received said that Security was supposed to be where we are now, the decontamination pods should be back in that room there, and the stairs to the lower levels just past where that doorway is."

"Are you sure you aren't remembering wrong?"

"I'm certain."

"Jeff?"

"Just-be careful. We don't have a choice at this point, but don't trust these scientists," he ended.

"Sir?" An approaching man in a lab coat caught Jeff's attention. "Are you ready to enter decontamination?"

"Yeah. Yeah, just a second." Jeff waved him off. Looking back at Andy, "Just remember what I said. Anything happens, you keep a close eye on Jonathan."

Andy nodded. "I will. Don't worry about me."

Jeff nodded once, and then turned to get into a decontamination pod. Andy did the same when another scientist indicated that it was time for her to enter a pod as well. She turned and clambered into one of the large machines. As the door swung closed and air pressure hissed through, she couldn't help but to note how cold it was, and how quickly the temperature was dropping.

No! This couldn't be! Jeff was right, this place wasn't what it was supposed to be. Vault-Tec lied, this isn't what they signed up for!

The glass panel fogged over, and ice crystals started to form from the humidity of her breath. Everything went black and she remembered no more.

* * *

A whoosh, and hiss of air.

Cold. So cold. Warmth? Where was the warmth?

Supports fell away and Andy felt her body pitch forward. She hit the floor in a dead collapse. She tried to open her eyes, it was so hard, and the lights were so bright. She rolled herself onto her back and squinted her eyes, trying to see. As her vison became clearer, Andy started to make out her surroundings. A few decontamination pod doors swung open, the occupants of one or two falling out like Andy had, the rest remained inside.

Grabbing a pipe attached to the pod she had just fallen from a few minutes previous, Andy pulled herself into a sitting position. Rubbing grime from her eyes, she looked around. A woman was on her back in much the same way Andy had just been, rubbing her eyes. One or two people weren't moving. Andy looked away and up at the ceiling. Pipes running from place to place, some hissing some kind of coolant or other steam out. Rust wrapped a few pipes, clinging to the bolts and brackets especially around where the steam escaped.

The door at the end of the room slid open. Andy turned her head to face it. A man walked through. White skin, bald, an angry frown on his face, the same blue and yellow suit on as the rest of them. Big, too. At least 6 feet tall, she'd bet, and maybe 200 pounds. As he walked down the steps, she corrected herself. Nearly bald. A military style buzz cut. He looked around the room at the different pods.

"Two dead in this room, the rest look like they're recovering just fine." He called behind him to someone Andy couldn't see. The newcomer grabbed a man out of a pod, hoisting him to his feet and helping him find his footing before helping the woman on the floor to her feet. Andy shivered and hugged herself tight. Andy found herself staring at his outstretched hand for a second before taking it. He lifted her off the ground like she weighed nothing to him. He grabbed her by the shoulder to steady her when she wobbled.

"What happened? This isn't..." She shook her head. "Who are you?"

He hesitated for a moment. "John. John Wakowski. I'm in the Army, the 2/4. You?" He questioned.

"Andy Smithwright. I'm a student at Boston University." She snorted. "Well, was. I don't imagine it's exactly open right now."

John let out a chuckle. "No. No, I guess not." He gestured to the doorway. "Come on, we're gathering everyone in another room. There are no Vault-Tec employees anywhere. In fact, it doesn't look like there have been for a while."

While they had been talking, a tall woman with blond hair pulled back into a no-nonsense bun had entered the room and was typing on the computer terminal on the raised platform. They made eye contact and nodded to one another as Andy exited. John stayed behind, helping people up and explaining where to go.

Andy felt a jolt of panic rush through her. Two bodies, there were two bodies in the room with her. Jeff and Jonathan, where were they? Andy pushed past a few people who were walking painfully slowly, rushing to find out where they could be. A few twists and turns down ill-maintained hallways and she found herself in the dining area John had directed her to. She stumbled once or twice along the way, but she found herself emerging into a small room with only two cafeteria style tables. There! A man with a bald head talking to a nervous seventeen-year-old.

"Jonathan! Jeff!" She cried out and ran to them. Jeff caught her in a hug.

"There were two bodies in the bay, I didn't know if it was you two or not. The pods weren't opening and I-" She stammered.

"We're all right. Andy, we're all here, we're all fine."

Jonathan looked at his father. "Dad, what's going on here?"

Jeff looked serious. Deadly serious. "Let's sit down first." Jonathan sat close to him, Andy across. "I've only been awake a few hours, I was one of the first ones up. The pods aren't waking everyone up all at once, it doesn't seem, only two every fifteen minutes or so. They put me in the bay next to you two." Jeff looked at his hands. "From what we can tell, from the computer logs so far and hacking into the database system. This vault was a lie. I was right, when we first came in. Everything was wrong. The layout, the procedures, hell, even the process to get us in. There shouldn't have been soldiers guarding the gate, this was a Vault-Tec project, with Vault-Tec people, and I don't know why the Army was here too."

"What are those pods we were in?" Jonathan cut in. "I feel like I've been stuck in a snowdrift and am just now waking up."

Jeff looked at his hands folded on the table in front of him. "You're not wrong, Son. We got into the Overseer's Office. The employees here were nothing but skeletons. We moved them into a side closet. No need for everyone to freak out. The bay I was in held a team of military people. Army. SpecOps if I'm correct. One of them, a big blond man named Jeffords is the captain. They've pretty much taken things over and are giving directions."

"Dad. What is it? You're rambling, what is it you're not telling us?"

Jeff looked at his son. "Cryogenics."

"What?"

"This 'vault' was never a vault. It was an experiment. I hacked into the terminal in the Overseer's Office and it was all there." Jeff breathed out heavily. Andy wasn't sure if it was a sigh or a half-aborted rueful laugh. "This vault is an experiment in cryogenics. They froze us here, set a timer, and left. We've been in here for 200 years."

A cold ball filled Andy's stomach that had nothing to do with the temperature. "No. They couldn't," she breathed. "That's against the law. It has to be. We never signed anything! There was no consent for something like this! How could the government allow this to happen?"

Jeff stood up. "I saw the time logs. The journal logs of the Overseer. Apparently, they were supposed to get an all-clear signal after six months. Except it never came. The Overseer wouldn't let any of the staff leave, eventually they ran out of food and there was a mutiny. From what we could tell, either they're all dead, or a few left the vault. But, considering how that was 200-odd years ago, who knows. It doesn't matter, anyways." He put a hand on his son's shoulder reassuringly. "I'm going to help Jeffords. If we're going to get out of here, we need to know exactly what's going on and what we're up against. You two stay in here, I'll be back. Look after each other." Jeff left the cafeteria, his son and niece in shock still processing their change in situation.

Andy looked around the cafeteria. A few people sat at the tables, more were in what looked like a barracks with bunk beds and bare mattresses lying down. Everyone was in shock, most still pale, from the cold or the shock, she couldn't tell.

Andy looked back at her cousin. "It's going to be okay," she told him. She wasn't sure if she was trying to convince him or herself.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3:**

* * *

Andy and Jonathan stayed in the cafeteria area for an hour or so. Jonathan quickly zeroed in on the terminal in there while Andy searched around the cabinets and storage rooms of the cafeteria looking for food or any other types of supplies. After an hour or so Andy got tired of waiting around. Slapping her hands on her thighs and rising to her feet, she got Jonathan's attention from the game of Red Menace he had found on a terminal in the cafeteria.

"I'm going to go see what I can do to help. Are you coming with, or do you want to stay here?"

"Do you mind if I stay here?" Jonathan ducked his head. "It's a bit much to take in. I don't really know what to do except for waiting here."

"That's alright. No one expects you to do anything. We're all in shock. See if you can help anyone in here, but it's okay if you sit tight for a while." Andy rubbed his head as she got up and left.

Poor kid. He was in shock, she could tell. Sitting there playing a computer game like he was trying to escape from the harsh reality. Similar to the others in the room who had opted to sleep instead of questioning what was going on. Andy couldn't blame them, she felt dead exhausted as well, but she was also more curious than tired.

Deciding to explore, instead of walking the same way she found the cafeteria, Andy took a left instead, entering what looked like the power generator room. _Broken_ power generator room, that is. Electricity sparked and lanced out around the generator, making it dangerous for anyone to even try and approach the towers. The room seemed to be built to accommodate this possibility and had a walkway that edged the room beyond the reach of the bolts. Andy followed it, noting the fresh dark stains on the flooring. Through another hallway was what must be the Overseer's Office. There she found someone already there on the terminal her uncle had described.

Captain Jeffords was not a large man. He was probably around 5'6", but what he did have was a stocky build, with a large chest and arms that made him look like a rooster strutting with a chest puffed out when he crossed his arms. He looked up from the terminal he was typing on when Andy entered the room and leaned back in the office chair. Crossing his arms, he raised a brow at her.

"Can I help you, civilian?"

Andy stuck her hand out at him, firm grip like Jeff had taught her. Jeffords seemed like a person who didn't like to beat around the bush and didn't require too much tactfulness to deal with.

"Andy Smithwright. Jeff Marsden's my uncle." He took her hand, shaking it with a rough grip.

"Captain Jeffords, US Army. I'm currently in command here until we can get into contact with whoever is in command of what's left of the government out there." Well, that clears that up.

"Speaking of, what is the plan for that?" Andy asked. "I searched through the cafeteria and sleeping room, there was no food to be found, only water from the tap. Also, there's only twelve beds, and they're all already occupied. As soon as people get hungry things are going to get ugly, fast."

"I'm aware of that."

"Point being, what can I do to help? I know my uncle has been busy helping you, but I'm not exactly satisfied with sitting and waiting."

Captain Jeffords looked at her appraisingly as he thought for a moment. "For now, my men are getting everyone out of the pods and figuring out just what in the hell this place is. I want you to head to the storage area where they stored everyone's belongings when we came down here. From what we've found, I don't think any of the employees made it out of here, so it should all be there. Pull everything with names on it. If you can find Pip-Boys, even better. They were supposed to be standard issue along with these suits. Additionally, any armored vault-suits and similar equipment, drag that out too."

Andy nodded. "Can do."

Jeffords gestured to the door behind her. "That tunnel is a shortcut to the entrance room. Don't worry about the bugs. They're dead." He paused, then rummaged around the desk for a moment before coming up with a collapsible baton. "Here," he said, handing it to her. "Just in case you find any more of them."

"Bugs?" Andy said uncertainly.

"You'll see them. Probably the radiation from outside mutated them. Just keep an eye out."

"Right." With that, Andy took the baton from the Captain and left.

Sure enough, there were corpses in the tunnel of massive cockroaches the size of small cats. She shuddered as she walked past them, and when one of them twitched a long leg she yelped and snapped out the baton and smashed it down onto the nasty bug. Just in case.

The storage room was off to the side of the main entrance where she had checked in her backpack upon entrance. Using her key, Andy opened her locker and pulled her backpack out. The contents were all there. Several plant guides and books, as well as a few magazines and a few other personal effects. She then opened up Jeff's locker and pulled his duffle out before moving on to the other lockers. The first 40 she guessed were for the 'residents', _more like test subjects_ , and she decided to leave those alone. The owners of the contents probably wouldn't appreciate her searching through their things when they can come get them themselves. Several stacks of boxes looked promising.

The first two contained what the Captain was looking for. Armored and reinforced vault-suits. Andy looked around quickly to make sure that no one was around before quickly swapping her current suit for one. She turned her nose up at the filthy suit she had spent the last 200 years. Kicking it into a corner, she turned back to the boxes.

Basic supplies like Abraxo and laundry detergent were aplenty, a box of batons, and another box contained boots of various sizes. Box number seven was the jackpot. Filled to the brim with Pip-Boys, she grabbed one and slapped it on her wrist, quickly booting it up. Old as it was, at least these RobCo built to last. It powered up nice and quick, measuring her biometrics and asking her to enter basic info health info as well as her name. Adjusting the dials to enter the info, Andy quickly set up a few things like an alarm and a lock she could engage. After that she continued to look through and mentally catalogue what was in the boxes. Once she was done with that, she grabbed the box of Pip-Boys, _Dickens, it was heavy,_ and hauled it back to the Overseer's Office. She set it down as gently as she could next to the desk, bending her knees generously in a low squat.

Jeffords was speaking with one of his men when Andy entered. "Pip-Boys," she announced. "I also found some armored vault-suits, boots, and plenty of these batons," she said, gesturing to her new clothes and the baton hanging at her waist from a belt-clip.

"Excellent. I see you helped yourself to some of it," Jeffords returned.

Andy frowned at him. I don't exactly like the idea of staying in the same change of clothes for 200 years, Captain. Unhygienic, if you ask me." She changed the subject quickly. "Plenty of items and tools for vault maintenance, cleaners, and such. Found about 10 fusions cores too. I left everyone's personal items in the lockers. I don't think anyone would appreciate me going through them."

"Good. Jacobs, help her finish sorting and categorizing. Dismissed, both of you."

She raised an eyebrow at the abrupt dismissal but left with Jacobs anyways.

"Is he always like that?" Andy asked when they arrived at the storage room.

"No, he's usually a lot politer. Look, we're all stressed and freaking out. Those bombs dropped about what feels like less than 12 hours ago, so cut him some slack." Jacob turned to Andy. "We're probably going to be trying to open those doors in a few hours. Six hours at most. There's no food in here and way too many people to try to keep trapped together on empty stomachs. Let's get these lockers open."

Using wrenches and flathead screwdrivers, Jacobs and Andy proceeded to force open the locker doors. The empty ones had keys in their handles, but the rest, around half, still had to be forced. While they were working, Andy tried to engage a little conversation.

"So how did y'all get down here? I thought the vaults were supposed to be civilian only."

Jacobs grunted at that. "They were. We were flying over in vertibirds on our way to a training exercise in the woods some 50 miles north of here from Fort Hagen. We got the emergency signal and were ordered to land. Command told us to secure the vault, so we landed. And here we are." He finished lamely.

From through the hallway where the cryopods were, they heard screaming and shouting. A few people ran into the pod bay it was coming from, but it didn't look like they were needed. Jacobs and Andy stopped what they were doing to listen to it.

When it died down, Andy turned back to Jacobs. "They told you to 'secure the vault?'" Andy asked skeptically.

"Well, we're not exactly cheaply trained soldiers," Jacobs responded evasively.

"Oh my god, you guys are SpecOps," she accused. "You forced your way into the vault because you're SpecOps. What about all of those people who were outside? Did they turn them all away because there was no room after you came in?"

Jacobs put his hands up palms out defensively. "Hey now, I had nothing to do with that decision, I just follow the orders."

"No, I guess you do," Andy replied. Thinking back, she remembered her and her family's sprint up the hill. "Not that it would have made much of difference. We were the last ones in and they weren't letting anyone in unless they were on that Vault-Tec register. And no one still at the gate was."

She ignored the memory of the mini-gun spinning up before they made it to the platform. It didn't matter anyways. They were here, and those other people were – not. The two of them finished their work in silence. Protests of metal was the only sounds as they forced open locked locker doors.

* * *

Not but an hour later, Jacobs and Andy found themselves directed to go lay down and rest for a few hours, they'd be opening the vault doors soon and the two of them needed to go rest. Andy found Jeff and Jonathan in the cafeteria again. She dropped Jeff's duffle next to him before setting her backpack next to it.

"We're leaving in three hours," Jeff told her.

"I heard. Blond woman told me to go ahead and sleep before we go. By the way, what was all that shouting earlier?"

Jeff rubbed his forehead. "That was one of the people in the pods, Nate Brunswick, our neighbor a few streets down. You remember him, he and his wife Nora just had a baby a little while back."

"Yeah, I remember the Brunswicks. What happened?"

Somehow, someone got into the vault, unfroze him and his wife. She had their baby in her pod with her. They shot her and took the kid, refroze them, and then left. The screaming was Nate when he woke up."

"Oh, god. Is she okay?"

"Yeah, she's fine. She got refrozen before she could bleed out substantially. The soldiers were on her as soon as she woke up. They got pressure on the wound and a stimpak in her. She's fine now."

"How did someone get into the vault? I thought we were sealed in here."

"We don't know. What does matter is that it happened 50 years ago."

"What? How?"

"Like I said, we don't know. There are no logs of the doors opening or closing, unless they've been scrubbed from the logs. But there are records of the pods in bay 3 being opened 50 years by a manual override and then set to close again in the system. The other 6 in the bay suffocated, though. But the logs are there. Someone was awake, opened up the pods in one bay to steal a baby, and then left."

"Holy shit. Do you think that it was Vault-Tec?"

"Probably. They probably realized how messed up it was to freeze an infant along with the adults. What doesn't sound like them is shooting the mother. Vault-Tec would have tranquilized her and then refrozen her." Jeff looked at Andy tiredly. "You should get some sleep. Captain Jeffords asked for you and I to be with them when they open the vault doors. We know the area, and so far, you and I are the only ones who have been doing anything besides staring at the walls in a catatonic state."

"Yeah, I'll try and do that."

Using her backpack as a makeshift pillow, Andy nestled herself into a corner of the room. She was so tired that she fell asleep even with the hard, cold floor.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4:**

A rough kick to her backpack woke Andy with a jolt. She hadn't even been dreaming, just floating in the endless black cushion of unconsciousness. The blond woman from the pod bay greeted her when she opened her eyes.

"C'mon and get up. We gotta go soon." The blond woman stood tall over her. "Woke you up a bit early so you can shower and clean up if you want. You look like you might want to."

Andy grimaced and scratched her dirty scalp. "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Is there hot water?"

"The hottest. Compared to this icebox, that is. Name's Beulah."

"Andy. Nice to meet you." Andy pulled herself up and grabbed her backpack. "Bathroom over there?" She asked, rubbing her eyes.

"Yeah, the shower's in there. It's all nice and warm right now so you should be good." Andy took in her wet hair and guessed that Beulah was speaking from experience.

"Thanks." With that, Andy hurried to the bathroom to claim the shower before anyone else could. Most everyone was asleep, huddled onto bunk beds and benches or on the floor like she had been. Those awake had sober, serious looks on their faces. Most of the military people, she guessed.

As she washed her hair, Andy found herself grateful, not for the first time, for her shorter haircut. It far easier to wash and detangle than if she would have had long hair. Maybe she wasn't the most stylish with her shorter cut, but what did that matter anymore. After scrubbing herself down with a bar of soap, Andy found herself wishing that she would have waited to put on a new vault-suit when she had a shower. With not much of another option, she put her new, but dirtied, vault suit back on. Either way, she felt refreshed from the hot water in a way that she hadn't for a while. Taking a small towel from a small stack that had been placed near the shower she rubbed herself down and did what she could to get the water from her hair before hanging the towel up to dry.

Wiping the condensation away from the mirror, Andy took in her appearance. Large dark circles under her eyes gave her a haggard look. The dark circles weren't helped by the large bruise on her cheekbone from falling out of a cryopod. A red angry split on her lips was additional evidence of the same accident. Her shoulder-length hair looked a dark brown, but she knew it would lighten to a dark honey color once dry. Her grey eyes looked tired. Tired enough that she appeared to be several years older than she really was. All in all, she didn't look all that good. With a shrug, Andy pulled herself away from her reflection. Someone else was probably waiting on her to get out of there.

Once out of the bathroom, Andy set to brushing her hair out with a brush in her backpack and pulling it into a tight ponytail. She considered it for a moment, and then poked a hole into it just above her hair tie and then pulled her ponytail through it, creating a rolled bun look so that nothing could snag onto her hair. That done, she was ready for—anything? Nothing for it but to take everything straight on.

* * *

Andy found Captain Jeffords in the entrance room along with some of his people and Jeff. She gave Jeff a hug when she saw him. He along with most others in the room were checking over weapons and clips of ammunition. The soldiers were much more distinguishable as they now had body armor on over their armored vault suits and many more weapons than just batons. Jeff had an armored suit on as well as a trucker's cap.

"What's the plan?" She asked him.

"We're going topside in about 15 minutes," he replied. Pulling his hat to fit snugger on his head, he continued. "You and I will be looking for any items we can scavenge, or if possible, any livable spots where we could set up a basecamp. We'll have to check if the generators that the city had hooked up to the water system is still operational, as well as the power supply. Those are our first priorities. You'll be my assistant on that."

Captain Jeffords cut in. "Overall, Smithwright, the plan is that we're going out. One squad will remain here with the rest of the civilians, one squad plus your uncle, Brunswick, yourself, and I will be going out to scout the outside. Team 1 will up a radio transponder while Team 2 proceeds to the town below – as Mr. Marsden has already explained – to see what has become of it, bring back any food we can, and secure the area." Jeffords gestured to each person referenced individually.

Andy almost hadn't recognized Nate Brunswick; his expression was so dark. He nodded shortly at her before rechecking his pistol. She wasn't sure that she had seen that much anger and death displayed on someone's face in a long time. She remembered what her uncle had said – that someone had broken into the vault years before the rest of them awoke and stole his child after attempting to murder his wife. Though she couldn't imagine what it must be like to suffer that, she couldn't fault him. Not in the slightest.

Captain Jeffords continued. "These armored vault-suits have light Kevlar built into them." He gestured to the chest, arms, and legs. "It won't stop multiple bullets and getting hit by a single shot will still be like getting a sledgehammer to the stomach and may even cause internal bleeding, but it's better than nothing. I'm not giving you any weapons, you have no previous experience with them and I'd rather you not shoot any of us by accident."

Andy couldn't fault that logic. She was a fairly good shot but that was only because Jeff had taught her and Jonathan how to shoot, but that was standing still shooting at a target. She wasn't comfortable in this kind of situation with one.

Jeffords addressed the room. "Listen up! I want everyone to keep their eyes and ears sharp out there. We have no clue what we're going to find out there. The Army has done experiments on the mutations caused by intense exposure to radiation, and none of the results are pretty. Ambient radiation levels should be just fine but keep an eye on your Pip-Boy Geigers just in case." Jeffords hooked his thumbs into his belt as he walked around everyone gathered. "First objective will be to set up a radio transponder on the hill when we come up. Second objective will be to scout out Sanctuary Hills, determine a location for a possible FBO, collect any food, and return to the vault. Tertiary objective will be to collect any intel on the surrounding area, the state of the government, and any surrounding areas. Questions?"

While a few soldiers asked questions about the specifics of the radio transponder and such, Andy turned to her uncle.

"Think the government's still out there?" She asked.

"I don't know, Andy. That was a pretty big blast over Boston. I certainly hope so, but we'll see."

As one of the soldiers connected his Pip-Boy to the blast door controls, lights started flashing, alarms sounded out and an automated message to 'please stand back' began to play. They stood in silence as the massive machinery unscrewed the bolts holding the blast door in place and the walkways slid into place for their exit. The grating to the elevator which they all entered on slid aside, and Jeffords signaled for everyone to proceed forward.

Once everyone was on the platform, Jeffords hit a green button at the edge, and the grate slid back closed as a chirpy voice thanked them for using Vault-Tec. The wheels and gears ground and clicked as the platform ascended, rust shaking loose and showering them from time to time. Beulah gave Andy a wave and a wink when they caught each other's eye.

Rust and dirt began to fall on them all when the top doors covering the outside platform split apart, opening to the outside world. Andy shielded her eyes from the brightness of the sun as they rose to the surface. Fresh air flooded her senses as a breeze hit them from above, carrying with it the scents of the wilderness, the crisp fall air washing over her.

"It's still Autumn," Andy breathed. If it weren't for the ruined and twisted structures, she wouldn't have guessed that anything had happened. "Plant life seems to have recovered."

Tall trees covered in red, yellow, and gold leaves waved in the breeze. The ground cover was beginning to lose its density and fallen leaves covered the ground. The military and Vault-Tec trucks that had been there when they went down into the vault were rusted and twisted remains.

"Rogers, Yanukovich, set up the transponder. Team 1 stay here with the transponder. Team 2, with me."

The descent down the hill to the old neighborhood took around twenty minutes at a slow careful pace. Andy and Jeff stayed in the center of the formation. The town itself was a ruin. Many buildings' roofs were caved in, the scent of mold and wood rot coming from them. The ones that still stood were curiously, well, maintained would be almost the word but there were no signs of residents. The team continued down the road and took a pedestrian bridge across the river that curved around Sanctuary Hills. Once they were in the neighborhood proper, the answer to the maintained houses was answered. Mr. Handys. Outside the Brunswick's home was a Mr. Handy, trimming the hedges. Andy had to admit the hedges were in good shape.

"Sir!" The Handy cried out and he and Nate had a tearful reunion. Well, as tearful as a repressed British butler can be.

"Codsworth, what happened?"

While master and robot reunited, Andy started looking around. Codsworth couldn't be the only Mr. Handy left, could he? Sanctuary Hills wasn't that small and was fairly middle class. The couldn't be the only ones who had Handys.

"Andy, with me." Jeff called out. "We need to find the utilities access manhole." He beckoned with his hand and the two of them pealed off from the group, two of the army soldiers following with them.

The utilities access was a street down and up back the way they came from. Andy looked at the dark hole with trepidation. Confined, closed space, and who knew what was down there. Luckily one of the soldiers volunteered to go first. One by one, they lowered themselves down the ladder into the utility access tunnel.

There were no lights on, but their Pip-Boys provided bright lights in the forms of flashlights. Their footsteps echoed down the dusty tunnel.

"Here we are," Jeff pronounced as he found an electric panel box and flipped a switch. Lights popped on, illuminating the tunnel. Andy's eyes took a moment to adjust to the light level. As they turned off the Pip-Boy lights, Andy heard a wet sounding groan that sent a shiver down her spine. Further down the tunnel, where they had not yet explored, Andy heard a pitter-patter of footsteps followed by the sound of something bouncing off of a chain-link fence, then a thud of something large hitting the ground.

The soldiers wasted no time. "You two, get behind us, stay ten feet back and watch our six," one ordered. The two already had their weapons out, safeties off, and were scanning the tunnel for the source of the sound.

The wet groaning and growling sound continued. They crept down the tunnel, toward the noise. It grew louder and louder until the two soldiers disappeared around a corner. Andy heard three shots and a thud. The growling grew ragged and then stopped. She and Jeff stayed back until they heard a "Clear!" ring out. Andy was immediately horrified by the sight that greeted her.

The tunnel opened into a larger area that contained a fusion reactor humming like the day it was installed. Surrounding the reactor was a chain-link fence, and inside of that fence was one of the most disgusting things she'd ever seen. A humanoid body that looked everything and more like it was ripped straight from a zombie horror film. But these were no prosthetics. Bumpy skin that looked like a 3rd degree burn victim with muscle exposed in places, bumpy scar tissue and what could have been tumors all over made the appearance bloated and twisted looking. The neck had all but disappeared as the shoulders had fused with the head. The face was even worse, missing teeth, a malformed jaw, nose almost gone, and eyes swollen almost shut by the fused skin around it. Worst of all, the tattered rags it wore looked like they belonged to a maintenance repairman.

"What the fuck is that?" Andy spat out in shock. She wanted to vomit from the sight.

"That, my friend, is a case of extreme radiation poisoning." One of the soldiers replied while opening the gate that had kept it from coming after them. "Poor fucker. I don't know how he survived all this time down here."

Jeff squatted down to take a closer look. "Yup. ERP. Who knows how many people there will be like this out here." Examining the body closely he used a nearby wrench to nudge its face to the side, Jeff continued in an informative, lecturing voice. "They make us look at the different stages of radiation poisoning when we do our doctorate in nuclear sciences. Most people die before they reach anything near this stage. The 'ghoulification' process, it's called. This is what happens when you get hit by a massive amount of radiation all at once. Usually it happens to plant workers when reactors go critical and they get hit by so much radiation that it – changes them. Somehow the radiation mutates the cells so fast that if you're lucky it becomes an energy source for your cells. The mitochondria begin to use radiation as an energy source as well as glucose." He stood up. "Prolonged exposure will still leave a person with all of their mental faculties. However, the longer you're exposed, or if your just plain unlucky, if it progresses to an extreme exposure, you're going to be just like this guy here. Covered with so many tumors and cancers that it drives you insane. You remember your Granny?"

"Yeah," answered Andy.

"Well, she just had a single tumor in her brain, and she lost her mind in just six months. We thought it was dementia at first, and she acted like it was dementia, just happening at an accelerated pace. With this, it's like the dementia keeps going but you're not dying. Because your mitochondria consumes radiation as an energy source, you won't die of starvation as long as you're absorbing enough radiation. You're just alive, and your mind continues to deteriorate further and further until you're no better than an animal." Jeff looked at the soldiers. "Watch out for any bodies that seem to be just lying on the ground and look like this one. They'll go into a hibernation state if there isn't enough radiation around to sustain prolonged activity. Most likely, once they wake up, like this one did, they'll keep going until they run out of any energy they've stored up."

The soldiers looked at Jeff in surprise. "We were just shown what the stages of radiation poisoning looked like," one of them said. "Never got a university lecture over it."

"It's not something the government likes for everyone to know, and just about everyone is more comfortable not knowing. We use nuclear energy for everything. It happens so rarely that it's better for people to just know the basics of staying away from radiation, no need to worry people with the most extreme cases. Kind of like rabies. Better to just let everyone know to stay away from any animal they think has rabies and to go to the emergency room if they get bitten than to show the graphic cases of what happens at the end if they don't. If you're studying it though, it makes sense for you to see what happens."

Jeff walked over to the reactor. "Enough of that. Andy, bring me that toolbox over there, I'll need you to follow my instructions on this. You two," Jeff caught the soldier's attention. "I don't need you here to do this, if you need to take a look at the rest of the tunnels that's fine with me while we work on this."

One of the soldiers nodded. "We'll lock the gate here so that if there are any more – extreme poisoning cases here – you'll both be fine until we can get back."

The soldiers dragged the corpse outside of the fence before placing a padlock Andy found in the toolbox and tossing Andy the key 'in case they didn't come back.' With that, the two soldiers left them while Andy acted as an assistant to Jeff while he repaired the wiring connections running to the reactor.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5:**

Andy squatted next to Jeff and handed him the tools he asked for and held wiring aside when he directed it. The soldiers had disappeared down the service tunnels for about 15 minutes now. Twice they had heard the reports of gunshots echoing down the tunnels. The eerie florescent lighting cast sharp shadows that anything could creep out of. Andy's heart pounded in her ears. She found herself looking around every few seconds watching for anything that may appear. Eventually, in between handing tools to Jeff and flipping switches to test connections, booted footsteps echoed down the utility tunnel and the soldiers returned.

Jeff was the first to speak. "I'm almost done with this." He fiddled with a few wiring connections before he stood and flipped a large red switch and then another. Power hummed as the generator seemed to speed up additional lights in the service tunnel lit up. "That's more like it!" he exclaimed.

"The tunnels are clear, we found a few more of those ERPs."

"Did you—" Andy began.

"Yeah, we put them down. Poor bastards."

Andy looked at the soldier in a new light. He sounded genuinely regretful. "You know, I never asked your names." She said as she unlocked the padlock holding the gate closed and handed the lock back to Jeff.

He looked at her appraisingly. "I'm Jackson, that's Simmons," he said, gesturing to the swarthier man behind him.

"I'm Andy Smithwright, this is my uncle Jeff Marsden," she said. "Thanks for coming down here with us."

"It's no problem, ma'am. Mr. Marsden, are we ready to go back topside?" Simmons asked Jeff.

Jeff wiped his dusty hands off on a rag that had been in the toolbox. "Ready. Power should be restored to the water purifier system, we'll have to see about the general electrical systems. I'd advise we wait on that until we can clear all the lines. The last thing we want is an electrical fire in one of those wrecks."

"Copy that. Let's go."

Knowing that the tunnels were clear made it all the easier to return up to the top since Andy wasn't preoccupied with checking behind her and listening for pattering footsteps. They hauled themselves up the ladder of the service tunnel and out into the daylight. Once out, Andy checked her Pip-Boy for the time. 11:24 AM, not bad. They had spent around three hours in the tunnels. Blinking a few times to adjust to the brightness, Andy squinted at the robot headed their way. A Mr. Handy.

"Jeeves!" Jeff exclaimed, surprised to see the old robot.

To his credit, the robot looked quite pristine. The metal shell was still polished, whatever alloy RobCo had used was quite resistant to rust, and he bobbed along like the day they had left.

"Sir, Ma'am. It is so good to see you both alive and well." The robot replied.

"What's been going on here, Jeeves? What happened?" Jeff inquired.

The Handy, ever polite replied, "A Captain Jeffords initiated wakeup protocols. I apologize sir, that I was not here to great you upon your return."

"No, Jeeves," Jeff shook his head. "After we left. Since then. What happened?"

"Well," Jeeves began, "I believe a summary is in order. When the explosion hit South of Boston, I—along with _most_ of the other Mr. Handys in the neighborhood—estimated that the survival chances of the people here were rather slim. Very slim, indeed. A few of your neighbors survived, but they had such terrible radiation burns. Very terrible, and a few of them, well, they quite lost their very minds. Shame, that business. A horrible shame." At this, the Handy swiveled its sensors as if he were shaking his head.

Understanding immediately what the robot meant, Andy interjected, "We found a few of them in the utility tunnels when we were making repairs. We had to put them down, too."

Jeeves bobbed his sensors in a facsimile of a nod. "I see, ma'am. Terribly sorry that you had to witness such brutality. Ah, as I was saying, we Mr. Handy's have remained at our posts, the odds of survival commanded that if there were even a hope left that you made it, that we stay here awaiting your, if not your descendants', emergence from Vault 111. To that end we formed a rotation of 10 years each while the others shut down for maintenance and fuel preservation. Codsworth, the Brunswick's Mr. Handy, was scheduled for this current rotation. If you ask me," Jeeves leaned in closer to them, "He was not quite right in the head. Losing his family made him quite not himself. Acted as though it were still the day before those dratted bombs fell on Boston."

Jeff rubbed at his chin. "During this time, have any of you left Sanctuary Hills? Found out what has changed?"

"Yes, sir. Due south, just north of the river near the railroad bridge, there is a local farm called Graygarden, founded by a Dr. E. Gray. The staff there is quite competent. We have exchanged transmissions, but our mutual subroutines have prevented more than a signal hailing. Through information exchange with Graygarden, I have ascertained that several species of flora and fauna have mutated significantly due to the ambient radiation. Additionally, there is a family by the name of Abernathy that have established themselves at the base of the powerlines between the Wicked Shipping Company and Concord. While not unfriendly, they have not proved themselves particularly friendly either."

"Mutated how?" Jeff pressed.

"Mostly insects have become larger and deadlier, in some cases to the size that they are able to prey on small animals and unwary humans. The deer and cattle population, more specifically, have mutated to have twin heads. More information than that, I am afraid, I cannot give you."

During the course of the conversation, the group had walked from the utility access tunnels to the center of the neighborhood, a quaint cul-de-sac that ended wrapped around a magnificent oak several hundred years old. Most of the houses to the center were much better maintained, a few had collapsed, but most were still in condition to be considered shelters once the holes were patched up.

Captain Jeffords awaited them, leaning over a table in the garage of a house turned temporary command center. Beulah was with him, they were looking over a series of maps and papers.

"Report," he said when they reached him.

"Sir," Simmons replied. "Water purifier is online, and the generator is up and running. Additionally, we made contact with three extreme radiation poisoning victims. All three were in an animalistic state and were dealt with."

Jeffords closed his eyes at the mention of the things they found in the utility tunnels but nodded gravely. "Very good. When will power be restored to the buildings, Marsden?" Jeffords asked.

"The nuclear generator is fine," Jeff started. "But the wiring in these houses hasn't been tended to. I'm not restoring power until I'm sure that all the lines are cleared. Electrical fires are nasty business. We'd be almost better off scrapping all of the wiring and starting fresh just so that we know where all the connections are and that they're in good shape." He pulled a rag out from his pocket and started wiping his hands off absentmindedly. Now, concerning the water supply, it's pulling from the river here and purifying. Luckily, we don't have to worry about radiation from the water supply, and if we cook food well enough it shouldn't do too much damage, radiation-wise."

Jeffords simply nodded like it was all information he expected to hear. "Good. For now, we're going to focus on making this area a little more livable. For now, that means food, water, and places to sleep. There are no rations left in the Vault, I want to leave you two here with fireteams 2 and 4 while 1 and 3 bring more people out here. For now, Sanctuary Hills is our Forward Operating Base."

"Any instructions aside from use our best judgement?" Andy asked. She watched Jeffords carefully. Unlike many of her classmates, there was a reason she hadn't joined the military the second she was old enough, war with China be damned. She didn't like being condescended to by people simply because they were a higher rank.

Jeffords seemed to genuinely consider her words. "For the meantime, until we can get a perimeter set up, I want you to focus on the more interior part of Sanctuary. I don't want a single person sleeping anywhere uncovered and exposed. I also want you to start plotting out where we can grow food. Salvage anything possible for the houses, regardless of if the previous owners are still alive or not. This is not the time for people to start getting greedy."

Jeffords couldn't have been older than 35 but his eyes looked old and tired. This had to be the last thing he could have imagined: Playing leader in a 'let's rebuild civilization' game to a mixed group of civvies and soldiers. 24 hours ago, he'd been worrying about how his unit would perform in a training exercise.

* * *

While Jeff went to work on the power system, Andy spent the rest of the day combing through the ruins of the old houses. The first place she started was her former home. The walkway was still lined with flowerbeds though they had run a bit wild. Andy could see the influence of the Mr. Handys, grass had not completely overrun the beds, and mums were beginning to bloom for the Autumn. Several holes had rusted through the roof, and a few panels had either blown off or fallen off the house. The door to the house hung on its hinges but was covered in rust and squealed as Andy forced it open. A rustling sound from the kitchen made Andy's hand automatically fall to her waist where her police baton hung. She snapped it open and entered the living room cautiously. The furniture was bedraggled and torn in places, but still halfway functional. Much like the furniture Andy and her friends would rescue from curbsides for their college apartments, passed down from other students who had done the same.

Paper rustled again. Behind the counter. Heart pounding in her ears, Andy carefully stepped forward and around the table looking for any sign of movement. Another rustle. She cleared the table and was rounding the counter when little legs skittered toward her. With a battle cry, she swung the baton down hard, hitting a little ball of fluffy brown fur while five similar blurs scattered in all directions.

A rabbit. A baby one, too. Kits? Cubs? No, those were foxes. Kits, she was fairly sure. "Damn it," Andy breathed out. "Poor little guy." She picked up the kit, it was twitching, her blow had broken its little spine.

"Fuck!" The word fell from her lips without her really realizing it. Tears started prickling at her eyes, threatening to fall. "Fuck this." The rabbit was still twitching, starting to squeal in agony. She put it back down and shook her head before she hit it once more, this time on the skull. Tears started falling from her eyes and she sat down heavily on the dirty floor by its little body.

Andy sat there crying in the ruins of her old kitchen by the body of the rabbit for some time, arms wrapped around her knees. She wasn't sure what she was crying for; the rabbit, her home, her old life, her friends, or all of it at once.

Once she ran out of tears and the sobs and hiccups had subsided, she tried to pull herself together. Wiping her face and fixing her ponytail, she grabbed the rabbit and found a piece of wire on the ground. Bending it into shape, she wrapped it around the rabbit's legs and looped the length through two belt loops, securely attaching it. Wherever the rabbit's mother was, it had probably left its babies in what should have been a safe place. Wherever they had all scattered to now was anyone's guess. Making a mental note to try and make some snares and traps for them, Andy started thinking on how difficult it would be to catch them and possibly domesticate them. She started to search through the rest of the house. Surprisingly, the refrigerator was still in good condition. The rubber seals looked to still be holding, and the door opened and closed easily. She moved to the rest of the house.

In her old room, there was a hole in the wall and the ceiling. Her mattress had practically rotted away, and the bedframe was broken and collapsed. Next to the dresser, Andy found part of her stash of books. Some of them had extensive water damage, mold, re insect-eaten, though some were still readable if yellowed. Opening her closet, the boxes of college textbooks stored there were in much better condition. In fact, in a few boxes there were clothes she had stored that had survived. Once Andy checked her uncle and cousin's rooms, she found the same to be the case, however their rooms did not have as many holes, and their mattresses had survived somewhat. Some articles of clothing that were stored in boxes and in dressers had survived, though they would never be in the same condition as they originally had been. She found an old clipboard and pencil and started making notes on notebook paper she found.

After checking the house over, Andy made a mark on her clipboard to indicate that the house was at least habitable. Moving to the neighbors, Andy started the process all over again. Checking the roofs and walls, finding if the mattresses had rotted away. Seeing what furniture had survived. She counted the beds, mattresses, and furniture, and catalogued if any boxes of food had survived. Andy turned her nose up at the preserved food. All of Jeff's jokes about how many preservatives were in Sugar Bombs weren't all that funny anymore. But food is food and her stomach was growling.

The rest of the day was spent like that. Cataloging the homes of her neighbors and wondering which of them were in the Vault and which ones—weren't. Dead. Which ones were dead. She had to come to terms with it sometime. She didn't have any more rabbit fiascos, but she did stomp and beat to death several giant cockroaches swollen to several times their natural size. As the sun began its descent and was hanging lower and lower in the sky, Andy heard her name being called.

"Here," she replied, stepping out and closing the door to what had been Old Lady Whitaker's house. The old woman had a root cellar at the rear of her home that had survived most if not all of the degradation that had happened to the world above it. She wasn't the only one in the neighborhood that had a root cellar, but in this one Andy found several supplies there; a radio, a small generator, some preserved rations, water, and the most important thing of all: seeds. Kitchen garden and household gardening seeds alike. Old Lady Whitaker had been an avid gardener and it looked like her root cellar was her gardening storage. Kept dry and cold, the cellar had preserved the equipment within, and hopefully most of the seeds were still able to germinate.

Beulah was approaching, a 9mm on her side and an assured gate in her walk. "What success have you had here, darlin'?" She asked in a Southern drawl. "I'm hopin' that not too much has been destroyed, I'd rather like a place to sleep tonight that isn't that cold vault." Andy wished that she held half the self-confidence that Beulah did. She was a pretty woman, one of those who, no matter how long or short her hair was, would be strikingly beautiful. With a slim jaw, shapely lips, full cheeks, and intense eyes, she was an intimidatingly beautiful woman.

Andy smiled and tried to crack a joke, "I fought off a vicious rabbit attack and survived," gesturing to the rabbit still hanging from her side. "If you're looking for beds though, it looks like we'll have plenty, though a few are pretty nasty. You might want to use a sleeping bag or bedroll rather than a few of them."

"Are you alright, honey?" Beulah asked when she got closer to Andy, an expression of concern on her face. Andy realized that her eyes were probably still red and puffy, she had cried on and off during the day while she catalogued things.

"Yeah," Andy said softly. "I'll be okay. Just, just dealing with—" she trailed off as she gestured hopelessly to everything around them.

"Oh, honey," Beulah said, wrapping Andy into a hug. "I know." The two women held each other tight, both experiencing the same loss. After a moment they broke apart. "Come on, I'll get up you up to speed on what's happening."

As they walked to the center of the cul-de-sac where Jeffords was setting up a base, they spoke. "We've picked up radio broadcasts on several stations. Something called Diamond City Radio, there's a man announcing news and broadcasting pre-war music. Another radio we've started calling the Classical Radio is only playing old classical music, no DJ or anything." Beulah explained. Her brows furrowed.

"Is it possible that it's automatic or do you think that someone is actively broadcasting it?" Andy asked.

"Well, either way the source would need power so it's highly unlikely that it's running on automatic. Power sources need upkeep, you know. But the Diamond City one, that's what we're really interested in. A live announcer means that there's still a civilization of some kind out here in all this." They stepped over rubber tires laying in the road and picked their way around abandoned rusted cars. "The most concernin' thing is the government." Beulah said the word 'government' in a very drawn out way, like 'gov-uhn-ment'.

"Why? I though Captain Jeffords was most interested in finding if there was anything left. Is there anything left?" Andy asked, confused.

Beulah seemed to consider her next words carefully. "Well, the only signal the radio team picked up on was from comin' from Washin'ton, and it was strange to say the least." She paused for a moment while they climbed over a fallen tree trunk. The house next to them was partially destroyed from a tree falling on top of it. "Some man callin' himself 'John Henry Eden' is claimin' to be the president of the United States. 'Cept he ain't exactly callin' it the United States, he keeps calling it 'The Enclave'. Captain Jeffords hasn't said anything, but I don't think he plans on makin' contact with them. If they're callin' themselves Enclave, then they're not U.S. Army, and they're not in our chain of command." Beulah caught Andy's gaze. "So that means that they're probably not the type to help us out either. Not like we have some intel or assets that they would particularly need."

When the two women arrived back at the cul-de-sac, there were more people around. Most of them Army soldiers, but the rest of the people from the vault. A few fires were going in burn barrels over which water was being heated, and a few people were sitting on fallen tree branches turned benches. Andy noticed a large tub had been set up by a pump in the garage in which a dishwashing operation was going. The purified water was helping already, she could see. Old coffee pots, cups, plates, and cutlery were already being set out and drying and the washing water was soapy and grimy. Mrs. Heady was putting her years of neighborhood organization to good use, directing several people about the process of washing, drying of dishes, and setting out MREs for dinner. About 10 feet from it a hose had been set up and a man was using it to spray the dirt and filth off furniture before it was removed to dry and another one carried up to replace it. Everyone was busy getting some semblance of order and cleanliness to the place. In and around the surrounding houses, Andy could see at least three Mr. Handys using their blowtorches and tool attachments to weld and bolt metal over the holes in the buildings and roofs.

Spotting the Captain and the burgeoning administration around him, Andy went to make her report, setting down the list of houses and items she'd gathered where he could read it.

"Rabbits?" He asked, catching sight of her kill.

"Yeah, I disturbed a whole nest of them. I was thinking that if we could catch some, we could start keeping them for the meat." Andy replied dutifully.

Jeffords nodded. "You only caught the one?"

An embarrassed laugh. "I thought they were those giant cockroaches and they scared the crap out of me when they scattered everywhere. I only got this one on accident," Andy replied, rubbing the back of her neck.

Beulah laughed at that. "You didn't tell me that part of it. Here I was, thinkin' you were some great hunter or somethin'."

Andy smiled. "Not that great if all I'm getting is little baby rabbits." She gestured to the sheet she'd placed down. "That's all the houses accounted for. About half are destroyed, but most of them are in good enough shape. I noticed that the houses whose owners had Mr. Handys were in much better shape than those who didn't."

Beulah nodded. "Thank you. You might want to go see if you can cook something up with that there catch you got."

Recognizing the dismissal for what it was, Andy left the two of them to it. She hadn't mentioned anything about the root cellar yet. She kind of wanted to keep that to herself for the time being, selfish as it was.

She found Jeff and Jonathan eating MRE's by a fire close to the old oak tree. She proudly displayed her rabbit and Jonathan excitedly got to work skinning it and working out a skewer to cook it on. While he was working on that, Andy asked Jeff for an update on the day.

Jeff had spent the day making sure the water system was working and searching out leaks. A few still needed finding and patching. They'd make themselves apparent soon, so he planned on spending the next few days searching out any muddy patches. Jonathan had taken it upon himself to assist Mrs. Heady with any tasks she needed. She had to be one of the most resilient old women that Andy knew; she had taken all of the past few days' events in stride and was falling into place directing everyone in the rebuilding effort.

"We're not abandoning the vault. It's got too many resources. We just can't stay there without food though, and there's just not enough beds. I think about half will return there before sundown, we'll take some of these MRE's back with us, and settle in. The rest will have to either sleep on the floor or stay out here and rough it. It's a good thing the Mulvaney's were such doomsday preppers. They had so much canned food and MREs in their basement it'll sustain us for at least a month."

Andy had a question that was bugging her. "Jeff, if there are so many resources here, the water, the houses, the food—why hasn't anyone come here to try and take it in 200 years? Why is it all still here?" she asked. She didn't quite understand why so much was still here and not scavenged, especially if there were people and towns out in the Commonwealth.

Jeff didn't reply for a moment, and then spoke in a hushed voice so that Jonathan wouldn't overhear. "I questioned Jeeves on just that. The Mr. Handys have a home defense setting, it seems. They've fought off and killed anyone who showed up that wasn't an original resident. We're lucky that Nate Brunswick, you, and myself came up with the soldiers this morning so that they stood down. They have IFF transponders, that's an Identify Friend or Foe transponder, and I programmed everyone from the Vault in. They'll be friendly to all of us, but any outsiders will have to watch out."

"Wow," Andy breathed out. "Can all Mr. Handys act like Mr. Gutsys?" She asked.

Jeff thought about it for a moment. "I think that they can, they're not near as durable or deadly as a Mr. Gutsy though." Jonathan chose that moment to return with a newly roasted rabbit on a stick for Andy. "Looks like you haven't eaten all day," he said in a normal tone. "Why don't you grab a meal ration and eat with us. We can split the rabbit between us."

Andy smiled at her uncle. "Sounds like a plan," she said before getting up to go get food and a plate.

* * *

 **A/N: So I got to thinking, even after Chernobyl, there are still plenty of animals living wild even with the radiation around them. I also usually play with the 'Green in the Commonwealth' mod, or another of the seasonal mods on Fallout 4. Those two factors combined, and I think that in a more realistic wasteland, even if there are a lot of heavily mutated animals, there's probably still a lot of prey animals around; squirrels, rabbits, and the like. It wouldn't be just large animals and insects that mutated and survived. They've all got to survive on something, right?**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6:**

The sky above was lightening, streaked with dusky pinks, purples, and blues fading into black. Andy groaned before rolling over and awakening the screen on her Pip-Boy. 4 AM. She rubbed her eyes, wiping the crusts from the corners where her tears had dried, squeezed her eyes hard and turned back over snuggling into the blanket she had.

An hour later and she repeated the same movement. Roll. Check the time. Rub. Roll.

At 6 AM, she finally decided it was time to wake up. She had taken up residence in Old Lady Whitaker's old house. As a teenager Andy had spent time with Old Lady Whitaker on the weekends helping her with her gardening and pruning that Old Lady Whitaker's hands shook too much to do anymore. Her real name was Ginevra Whitaker, or Ginny to her fellows. But the younger generation just called her Old Lady Whitaker. Eventually, Mrs. Whitaker had started paying Andy to come garden for her every Saturday morning. She tried to pay Andy minimum wage for it, around $275 an hour, but Andy had always slipped the envelope of cash back into her purse before leaving. Andy genuinely enjoyed weeding the garden in the early morning hours and Mrs. Whitaker always had a pitcher of lemonade or sweet tea with muffins or some other shortbread waiting for her once she was done. Andy had sort of adopted Mrs. Whitaker as a grandparent, and just couldn't take the money from her.

Mrs. Whitaker had a Ms. Nanny which had taken care of her when she had started having mobility issues. It had also taken over the gardening once Andy had moved off to college and wasn't there to do it for her anymore. Her children had been planning to move her into a retirement home soon, but in the mean-time she had been getting along well enough with her Ms. Nanny that they hadn't done it yet. It was one of the homes which had evaded roof leaks and too many holes in the walls due to the robots. Since it was closer to the outskirts of Sanctuary, no one had made a complaint when she took over the house by herself. Aida, the Ms. Nanny, had volunteered to help Andy with her tasks. Andy had been relieved to find out that Mrs. Whitaker had downloaded additional horticulture and medical modules onto Aida. It was still Fall, but Andy couldn't imagine trying to plant any gardens or meaningful crops of any kind by herself. Anything she had planted before was already past the seedling stage. She was a Bio major, leaning into Ecology, but she didn't know enough about mass food gardening to consider herself the agricultural expert for an entire makeshift colony.

She got out of bed and immediately set to work brushing her hair and putting on some better clothes. A red flannel long sleeve shirt and jeans. She added a scarf for good measure to protect against the gusts of occasional wind. Andy looked around the bedroom. Ragged and beaten up as the place was, over the last few weeks she and Aida had cleaned up the place rather well. Sliding the drawers to the dresser closed, she opened the bedroom door. Aida had already heard her moving around and had started a pot of tea and a breakfast for her. For not the first time, Andy found herself quite thankful that the Ms. Nanny had allowed her to adopt her. Andy had taken Old Lady Whitaker's bones out and buried them by the river, and she thought that it endeared her to the robot more than any pre-bomb gardening she had done for the woman would.

The bathroom was beat up but serviceable. For not the first time Andy found herself very happy that she didn't have to wear glasses. The water was clean and pure as she ran the tap. It hadn't been when she first moved into the house, she spent the first day running the sinks and shower to clear the sediment out of the pipes. For the first hour the water ran black. Eventually once it cleared up she felt safe enough to use it for washing. She had Aida test it for purity before drinking, but to be fair, it was probably safer than any other sources of water she'd find. Andy splashed her face with the water before turning the tap back to the off position and toweling her face dry.

"Madam Andromeda, it is so good to see you up, bright and early," Aida chirped in her French accent when Andy slid into a chair at the wobbly dining table. "Your breakfast is prepared. Sadly, however, there is no morning paper for your perusal."

"Aida, there won't be a morning paper for a long, long time," Andy responded. "You can help me move the rest of my old textbooks here today though." As much as Andy loved her uncle and cousin, being in such close proximity for the last few weeks has reminded her why she opted for an apartment rather than commute from Sanctuary Hills. Jonathan was in a teenager stage where most everything was about him, not that she could fault him since everyone went through that stage and didn't really have good boundaries when it came to privacy respecting alone time. Jeff was great, and all, but at the same time Andy wasn't a teenager anymore, and she and Jeff had some conflicts when it came to Jeff treating her like an adult. It was certainly better than it was when she had first moved out, but there were still small things that irked her.

"Can you grab me _Norton's Guide to Gardening_ from the bedroom, Aida?" Andy requested as she started on her food. She had forgotten to bring it with her from the nightstand.

"Of course, Madame," Aida replied before hovering off to the bedroom. Once she brought back the requested book Andy read the rest of the morning about what could be done for planting preparation during the winter. For the most part, she thought that it would be best to start the plants indoors under the supervision of Mr. Handys and then move them outside once it was warm enough. What they really needed though, was good viable seeds in much more of a variety than Mrs. Whitaker had kept in her cellar. Without trying to propagate them, Andy had no way of knowing if they were even viable still. Some seeds could keep thousands of years, like date palms and lotus, but as for gardening plants? She had no idea. Her mind kept going back to a cellular biology lecture where her professor had mentioned seed banks. It wasn't quite in vogue yet, but a few states and universities that could afford it, had started seed banks inspired by the Vault-Tec vaults. Nuclear shelters for plants. Most of them had designated teams that were supposed to go underground with the plants, but some were completely automated. The problem was finding them. Andy couldn't remember for the life of her if her professor had ever mentioned where they might be. Boston University had one, she thought, but she couldn't remember if the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Seed Bank was located in Lexington or Concord. It would be something to bring up to Captain Jeffords.

Once she finished her breakfast of hash browns from the rations and poured half of the remaining tea into a mug, refilled her mug and made her way out of the house. She still had trouble mentally referring to it as her home instead of Old Lady Whitaker's. Adjusting her scarf so that it piled around her neck and concealed her chin and her nose if she shrunk into it, she took a right straight out of the door and strolled toward the footbridge that lead south of the neighborhood. One of the Army soldiers was on watch, gazing out over the river and the early morning mist. Andy announced her presence softly to the man. When he turned around she saw it was John Wakowski. He acknowledged her presence with a nod before turning back around to keep watch over the riverbank.

"Here," she said when she finally reached him, gesturing with the steaming mug of tea. Wisps of vapor rose from the surface of the tea dissipating into the air.

"You're up early," he commented, taking the mug from her. "Damn, that's hot," he said when he took a sip, jerking back like his lips were burned and setting it down on the stone fence to cool.

"Couldn't sleep. It's hard to now." She replied. "I've been lying awake at night trying to figure out how in the hell I'm going to get food planted. When I told Jeffords about the seeds I didn't expect him to put me in charge of them." She sighed and then remembered herself. "How did you sleep?"

John laughed. "I didn't. I've been on watch since 0100." Andy grimaced. "I'll be done at 0900 and ready to go to bed." He raised the cup to her. "Thanks for the tea. I'll leave the cup at your house on my way back."

Andy smiled at him and gave a goodbye before leaving. As she walked through Sanctuary, she marveled at how much work had been done in the few weeks since leaving the vault. What had previously been wreckage just looked like a shabby shanty town now. The electricity was running in a few places, there was running water, and repairs were being completed to many houses. Additionally, the beginnings of a wall around the – colony, settlement, town, outpost? What is it really? – place was being erected. Without the help of the robots, they wouldn't have made so much progress. By virtue of not having to eat or rest the robots had done so much once given proper instructions. The Callahans had both been intel analysts and were very gifted with computers and were more than capable of writing programs for the robots to follow when being utilized for reconstruction. Most of the material for the fence was coming from the ruins of wrecked houses. Since the robots were constrained by their programming, they were not able to do any maintenance on any dwellings that did not have a Mr. Handy or Ms. Nanny assigned to it. Something about being able to assist one another but not able to maintain a property without the consent of the owner or caretaker. A few people were awake and moving around.

Sipping on her tea, Andy made her way to The Garage, the name that had been given to the main base house. Andy had to laugh to herself about it; the cul-de-sac was supposed to be the nicest part of the neighborhood, the place featured on all of the brochures, where children were supposed to go to play and parents following to socialize. Instead the center of Sanctuary had become the car garage of a long-dead man. The Brunswicks home was mostly dark, but there was a light on in their living room. Andy could see Codsworth, their Mr. Handy, floating through the window preparing food. Their home was almost directly across the street from The Garage. Captain Jeffords was already awake, because _of course he was_ , plotting whatever he was plotting.

"Morning," she announced herself with a knock on the doorframe. Jeffords looked up from a copy of _Grognak the Barbarian_. "Never pegged you for a comic books buy," she said wryly.

To his credit, Jeffords didn't let his expression change. "No coffee for me?" He asked.

"I only have tea this morning, but I can have Aida brew you some if you'd really like," Andy offered.

"Coffee and good company, that's hard to turn down," Jeffords accepted.

"How is everything?" Andy asked, curiosity getting the better of her.

"With me personally, or with the state of things?" He countered.

"Either. Both."

"Well, our patrols have found a few farms locally. Concord is a shithole with only a few squatters left, Lexington and Cambridge are full of ERP victims, and Boston proper is too fucked up for us to even think about moving anything there right now. The world has gone to shit, there is no government left to take direction from, and I'm left in charge of a mixed bag of soldiers and civilians. Oh, and it's almost winter, and I don't know if we'll have any food left come Spring. So yeah, that's about how things are right now. All we can do is focus on survival, with no long-term goals in sight." Jeffords tossed his comic down onto the coffee table. Andy leaned against the doorframe, head cocked to the side as she listened to him vent. "And not to mention all of these bat-shit insane transmissions broadcast by this fucking 'Enclave', bunch of fucking crazy motherfuckers, acting like they're from before the war, talking about shit like baseball games like they have an idea." Jeffords stood at this. "Have you listened to any of these broadcasts?" Jeffords pointed an accusing finger at her. "Well fucking don't. This John Henry Eden and his fucking Enclave can fuck right off."

Jeffords continued to rant for a few minutes while Andy entered the house further and started preparing a pot of coffee while he spoke, nodding at the appropriate moments and making affirmative noises. He reminded her of an ex that she had. They'd eventually broke up, not because they had opposing political views, but because she couldn't handle his constant political rants that lasted 5-10 minutes each without any input from anyone else. She interjected fully when something he said caught her attention.

"Greygarden, a patrol checked it out?"

"Yeah, and it was just a bunch of Mr. Handys that went crazy after the war, think that they're still working for someone called Mr. Grey. Wanted my men to go clear out a water processing plant for them before they'd even be willing to talk about trading."

"Do you think they'd be willing to – relocate – maybe?" Andy asked.

"You'd probably have to get one of the Callahans down there to reprogram them. I don't think so, especially since it looks like several of them have admin privileges." Jeffords answered. "Anyway, back to what I was saying—" Jeffords continued down his original path until Andy handed him a cup of hot coffee.

"Well, in the meantime, we'll just have to see what we can do here until we get into contact with this Diamond City. What about that other radio station, that Silver Shroud station?"

"Oh, that one's definitely live, too." He said. "I'm tempted to find out who it is. The narrator really sounds like someone who could use to kick the cigarette habit. That voice grates on me. But it does play good reruns." Jeffords looked a little embarrassed. "Sorry about the rant. It feels good to get that off my chest, though. Thanks for listening." He smiled warmly at her in the nicest expression she had seen on his face the entire time she knew him.

Andy smiled at him. "It's no problem. Anytime." She turned to leave before Jeffords' voice stopped her.

"Andy," he started. "Do you think you could go out with the next patrol to Abernathy Farm?" He asked.

Andy turned around at that. "Why me? I'm not exactly, uh, military material or anything." She said a little awkwardly.

"I know that, it's why I'm asking you to go." Jeffords was back into his leader mode. "It might help for them to see someone who _isn't'_ military, might make them a bit more willing to do business with us. They're a family with young kids and I think the boys might have scared them a bit. I want them to feel more secure with us around. We are the good guys, after all."

Andy considered it for a minute. Hell, it wasn't like she was doing much here except plotting out garden areas. She might as well. "Sure," she agreed. "When would I be going?"

"Tomorrow morning." Jeffords said, looking happy that she'd agreed to go. "Thank you, Smithwright," he reverted to the more formal last name basis.

She gave him a smile, before leaving the house to go check on her rabbit traps that she'd set up the previous week.

The traps were set up closer to the river near a tree and a small trail she had identified as a game trail. Jerry-rigged out of wiring and produce baskets, she was—well, half way confident—that the trap would eventually catch a rabbit. The first three animals caught were squirrels which had subsequently made their way into stew. Squirrels were good for nothing, oversized, insidious, bushy-tailed, glorified tree rats that somehow some people found to be cute. There was nothing cute about them once they found their way into your apartment walls and then decided to live there for a few months and then die there. Damn squirrels. Andy would gladly skin and eat them all.

She was not entirely prepared for what was in the cage this time. A pathetic yowling sound started when Andy got close enough to the trap. "Holy crap!" Andy exclaimed when she saw the cage. A brown and black tortoiseshell colored cat glared back at her. "Hey, kitty, kitty," she soothed. The cat yowled again at her, demanding she open the cage. "You're not a scared one, now are you?" Andy spoke to the cat.

Another demanding yowl. More ferocious this time.

She wasn't about to eat a cat, they might be on rations, but Andy was definitely not about to eat a cat. She wiggled a finger at the cat and it responded by trying to claw at the appendage from between the bars of the cage.

"Alright, I'll get you out of here." The cat certainly wasn't afraid by any means, more indignant than anything. Probably had an owner at some point or was too brave for its own good. Andy pulled open the door of the trap and gingerly turned the mouth of it the opposite direction while avoiding cat claws aimed for her fingers before standing up and back away from it.

Tail held high, the cat strolled out of the cage, blinked balefully at her, and strutted off through the tall grass toward the neighborhood.

Andy watched the cat leave before remembering that if any predator animals had been caught in snares or traps that they needed to be left somewhere for the smell to wear off before being put in a new spot. She threaded a rope that she had left nearby to make a handle on top of the trap to haul it back to where a workshop area had been set up in Sanctuary proper.

More people were up now. Andy saw Mrs. Heady up and walking around with Mrs. Brunswick as they spoke about something. Andy waved at the two elder women as she passed but didn't interrupt their conversation.

Once she reached the garage converted to a workshop, she got to work fiddling with the trap making sure that nothing had messed it up. Nearby she had two more that she was working on. The tension triggers on the floor parts were especially frustrating her. Grabbing a wrench and screwdriver she got to work.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7:

A screw fell to the floor and rolled under the table. Andy hissed a curse under her breath. Funny, that. Since the general collapse of society, people had less and less of a reason to censor themselves every day. Andy found herself cursing much more often and noticing others swearing more. Or maybe there was more to swear about now. She couldn't decide.

Getting down on her knees, she fished underneath the worktable for the errant screw. It rolled away from her fingers several times before she finally caught it and pulled it out. Straightening her back and putting her weight onto, she jumped when she saw someone out of the corner of her eye.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you like that." John had propped himself against the garage wall. She suspected that he had been eyeing her backside while she was on all fours. He chuckled at her, breaking into a smile.

Andy gave him an exasperated look. "Whatever, you know I startle easily," she replied, "And you guys aren't helping." She smiled despite herself.

"It's not my fault that it's that easy," he said, pushing himself off from the wall and inspecting her game trap. "You've got a couple of these set up now," he observed. "Catch anything?"

Andy got to work on putting the screw where it belonged. "Just a few squirrels, that was the bits of fresh meat in the stew the other day, and a cat today."

"No shit?"

"Mmmhmm."

"Where is it? Are we going to eat it?"

"John!" Andy was scandalized. "No! It's a cat!"

John burst into laughter. "You should have seen your face!" Andy was not amused. "Besides, cats aren't good for anything. Might as well eat the little bastards."

She frowned at him. "You're terrible. And no, I'm not eating a cat." She waved the screwdriver at his face. "They're good for plenty of things, eating pests, providing comfort," his eyes followed the screwdriver. "Lot's of things. So, no eating." she concluded.

"Right, right," John said backing away. "Cat lady lives matter, got it." He was still grinning. "How many are you going to adopt? 15? 20?" Andy's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Are you going to fling them at people whenever they try to attack you?" John started making meowing noises and pantomiming throwing things at Andy.

Andy grinned despite herself. "Get out, you test." John retreated backwards out of the garage, yowling like a cat the whole way.

She turned her attention back to the trap, brushing some stray hair out of her face.

* * *

A patrol returned to Sanctuary Hills late that afternoon. They brought with them food and some other supplies with them. On their way back, they had been coming up through Drumlin and stopped by the ruined diner that was still standing. A family had set up a trading station there a few generations back and had been running it ever since. In exchange for clearing out a nearby suspected nest ERPs – ghouls, people called them – and had been rewarded with a good amount of supplies in lieu of caps.

The discovery that bottlecaps – of all things – had replaced money as the currency of the desolate future had struck several people as rather funny. Jonathan and Andy had discussed it over roasted rabbit a few days before. Jonathan was of the opinion that it was the only thing that you could count out multiple singles of, was plentiful, and didn't run the risk of tearing or getting damp and destroyed like paper money. Andy thought he had a point, she just thought it was ridiculous.

After ridding the area of the 'ghouls', the squad had stayed to get some intel on the area. They had found that the main reason that most of the settlers in the surrounding area were so apprehensive of speaking to them was that they had been mistaken for 'Gunners'. Gunners, apparently, were a large group of mercenaries that had set up a few years before. Outfitted with pre-war military equipment and some semblance of training, they had run roughshod over everyone around. Those wealthy enough to employ Gunners enjoyed relative safety, while those who didn't have the money to do the same hoped that they could avoid attracting attention.

The Callahans, who had already started up an intel database on their surroundings, started asking questions to add to their files. Where were they based, did the traders know anything about how one hired them, did they have recruitment, etc.

While they took down their information, Uncle Jeff made an observation to Captain Jeffords. "If we look that much like Gunners, it might be to our advantage to come up with some type of livery or uniform that is different. Vault Dwellers are generally looked at as an easy target and looking like Gunners might attract enemies."

Jeffords nodded before he spat on the ground. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes, tapped one free and lit it up. Once he'd taken a drag and exhaled he said, "I can't see us using the USG colors. For one, the gunners use it, and for two, I don't want us looking anything like that Enclave group." He exhaled, the smoke spiraling lazily back into the sky. He dipped his head, "Let's go talk about this, maybe draft up a few ideas."

Andy, off to the side, watched as her uncle and the captain went into The Garage. She waited around a few minutes more, listening to the conversations around her. The sun was starting to dip closer to the horizon and the burn pits that had been carefully dug out and lined with stones were being loaded up with wood and kindling in preparation to start some fires. Electricity had become a precious commodity and to avoid brownouts in the neighborhood people had started making their evening social lives outdoors around the firepits. Mrs. Heady had brought out a tray full of drinks and a few plates of meat skewers to be grilled. Someone's Mr. Handy, the Brunswick's, she guessed based on the fact that Mrs. Brunswick was giving it directions, was skillfully laying them out on a grate to grill and flipping them when necessary.

She found herself wishing she had put on a hat earlier in the morning now that the temperature was dropping significantly. Someone moving toward Andy made her turn her head in the new direction. Jonathan. "What's up?" She asked.

"Chicken butt," Jonathan replied in their customary greeting. He sighed heavily and leaned against the same wall Andy had found to support herself with. "Everything's different," he said at last, looking at the sky.

Andy followed his line of sight and found the first twinkling light in the sky. "Yeah," she replied simply. Her sleep wasn't the best. Several times she had woken herself up in a panic having nightmares about her friends, what had happened to them. She knew exactly how lucky it was that she had survived but sometimes – sometimes it didn't feel like a blessing.

She didn't know how long they had been there together enjoying twilight's progress without speaking a word before Jonathan's voice cracked the air.

"I miss them," Jonathan said. "A lot. Sometimes it feels like my chest is gonna burst it's so bad. Jackey, Bill, Lloyd, Dickey –" His voice cracked, and it sounded like he had tears in his eyes. Andy didn't look to check, she didn't want him to feel judged by it. "Is it gonna get better?" he asked. "Dad's trying so hard – he's been trying so hard since Mom left – but I don't feel like he has much time for me left. You two talk all the time but he doesn't the same with me. It's like I'm still a little kid to him and I don't know what I can do to make him know that I'm not anymore. That I'm grown up now. I don't know how to make him finally proud, y'know?"

Still not looking at him, Andy grabbed his hand and squeezed tight. She sighed and rolled her head back, looking at the sky. "Jeff's – Jeff isn't an easy man to please. He's proud. Hell, everyone in our family is proud. But he loves you, Jonathan, don't let him make you think differently. He might never say it, I don't know if he's the kind of person that even can say it, but he does. He makes you run all over working for him, right?" Jonathan nodded. "That means he trusts you. Your dad is the type that would ignore you if he didn't love you, if he didn't respect you. He gives you all those tasks because he trusts that you will do it right. He could use a Handy, but he doesn't. Jeff makes you get involved with all the projects with him because he knows you'll do a good job, because he wants your help, Jonathan. Don't ever think that he isn't proud of you, he's just the type that doesn't really know how to say it. He works hard though, to make sure we have enough. That we'll get by. And – I think to people like him – that's the closest, and the biggest 'I love you' that they can give."

She finished saying her piece, and silence reigned. Crickets chirped in the dusk, and voices murmured as people gathered around the firepits, eating and laughing. The smell of woodsmoke filled her nose and she heard the popping and cracking of wood burning. After a while Jonathan nodded, gave his thanks for her listening, and left.

He'd been hanging out with the soldiers a lot, Andy noted. Jeff was so busy with all of the projects necessary to keep Sanctuary running, getting running water and electricity was such a priority, that he had mostly neglected Jonathan beyond work. Jeff had been just as traumatized by the bombs as the rest of them, he just covered it by throwing himself into work. That was always the way he coped, when her parents and his wife had died, he coped by throwing himself into work, and that's what he was doing now. Sure, he'd was there for games and events, but only in body, his spirit was somewhere else. His mind working on figuring out a new equation or some such thing. She'd never called him on it because he was better than most of her friend's parents – they didn't even show up, so what did she really have to complain about? He wasn't even her dad, he was her uncle, but he still managed to show up for those events.

She pushed herself up off the wall she had been leaning on and joined Mrs. Heady and Mrs. Brunswick where they were by a fire.

"Evening," she greeted them. The two shifted further down so that there was room for her to sit with them.

Mrs. Heady cocked her head slightly, her brown eyes trained on Andy. "How is your little brother holding up, dear?"

Andy smiled wryly. "He's, uh, not my brother."

"Oh," Mrs. Heady replied, somewhat put off.

Andy felt as if she had made the situation awkward. "He's my cousin," she explained lamely. "Jeff is my uncle, not my father."

Mrs. Heady nodded her head in reply, satisfied with the explanation. "I see that you've moved into a house of your own. Gertie would be happy that there is someone there making the place feel alive again." She took a sip of the tea in her hand. "She never was the same after her husband left her and her children were always so far away."

"It was a bit much, living again with Jeff and Jonathan on top of all of this. We were having some conflicts that we really shouldn't have, and well, no one was living there. I like Aida well enough, I knew her before the bombs from when I helped Mrs. Whitaker with her hardens. I just hope that we can make the place, the entire neighborhood, really, something to see again." Andy replied. "After all of this," she gestured around with her hand, "something has to come of it. It just can't end like this, in such desolation."

"We will make something of it. The human race is surprisingly persistent," Mrs. Brunswick finally broke her silence. "We've lost everything, but at the same time, not quite." A shadow passed over her face and Andy reminded herself that the Brunswick's little one, Shaun, had been snatched out of the vault by an unknown party.

Sensing the mood, Mrs. Heady changed the subject. "So how did you get your name, Andy?"

This was more comfortable ground. "I know, it's quite masculine of a name. It's actually Andromeda, I just shortened it to Andy – Andromeda is too long. My parents named me after the Andromeda Galaxy. I think that they wanted me to become an astronomer. My mother always said that she wanted to see the day we landed on Mars. If the moon was this close, she would always tell me, then Mars was just the next step. I think that they knew that life here was ultimately doomed. I'm just glad that they didn't have to see this."

"What were you in college studying for?" Mrs. Heady asked.

"I started with biology, like my mother. But I'm not – wasn't – too sure yet. I was taking a lot of classes to do with plants and horticulture. I think that I would have studied to become a Master Gardener. Or maybe look at working with seed banks and stockpiles, or even work to design gardens and outdoor areas. I'm really not sure. There's a lot I could do with it. I was supposed to take a few aptitude placement tests before the bombs happened, but the bombs happened first."

Mrs. Heady nodded and then stood to her feet. "Well, let's get some of that food before it gets cold now, shall we?"

The three women got up to get some of the grilled meat that was being cooked. After dinner, Andy was walking back to her home. She purposefully took the long way around, rather than cut through the backyards, she followed the roads. She tucked her hands in next to her body, arms crossed for warmth. The air in front of her puffed white with her breath. The wind rustled the drying leaves of the trees, leaves that were red and orange before they would finally fall and become skeletal for the winter. She wondered how they would survive the winter. The limited trading they had been doing so far seemed to be working, but for how long? Would they just barely get by or would they ever be able to truly have lives once again?

Andy walked slowly, lost in thought. A few times she passed various soldiers patrolling, or on their way to their own places. When Andy reached her battered door, she lifted her hand up to turn the knob. To the right, leaves rustled in the bushes suddenly, as some thing bounded and jumped once, twice through the leaves, making rustling and crunching noises.

Andy jumped as a small thing landed on the porch at her feet. A harsh yowl cut through the air. Andy put her hand on her chest as she tried to stop her heart from beating so fast and exhaled heavily. Green eyes looked back up at her as the cat sat down, its tail curling around in front of it. The cat yowled again, as if to command her to open the door.

"Madame, what is the matter?" Aida chirped as she opened the door from inside. Taking the first opening, the cat darted inside.

Andy looked in the direction the cat went for a few moments before shaking herself out of a daze. "It seems we have a cat," she said to Aida before entering the house and shutting the door behind her.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8:

The world had definitely changed. Tinged with reds and oranges like it was, it was hard to tell sometimes, but the change was still there. For one, nature had reclaimed much of what was once manicured or beaten back land. Fields were still partly there because trees couldn't take over and grow as fast, but the undergrowth had spread all over. Roads were cracked, asphalt split apart by roots forcing through change with no one to maintain them. Houses passed were crumbling with no one to maintain them over the last two hundred years.

Andy shouldered her pack, shifting the weight to a more comfortable position. She certainly didn't know what she had expected. Life outside of Sanctuary Hills was quite different without the constant presence of Mr. Handys to trim back the invading tendrils of change. The old Red Rocket gas station had been converted into a guard station by the soldiers. Simmons, an African-American soldier told her about the infestation of the giant mole rats that they had to get rid of as they walked. He'd gained a few bites when the rats had unexpectedly burrowed out of the ground from their crisscrossing tunnels.

"That's why they get so aggressive," he explained. "I think that they're trying to keep anything heavy from collapsing the tunnels. They don't seem like they're carnivorous, and they don't chase too far past their territory." Simmons shrugged, "At least, I haven't seen them eat meat. We threw some toward a few and they ignored it. Chewed on some branches though. So, I don't think that they're carnivores. Might eat bugs though."

"Where were they coming from?" Andy asked.

"Well, once we killed some and they just kept coming back, the Sergeant had us look around, James found some logs on the computer inside about a cave they used to dump some waste, and sure enough that was it. There was a big momma rat in there about this big," he gestured widely with his hands. "Once we got the big momma they seemed to go away."

Jackson, another soldier piped in. "Where did they even come from? They're not North American animals," he said.

Andy remembered back to a few of her classes. "They're usually used as test animals. There's a whole ton of them in Africa, but these ones probably got imported for lab research. Looks like they were able to survive just fine and get out of the labs."

"Testing for what?"

"Various things. For one they live really long, don't feel pain very easily, and I think they have a resistance to cancer, or they don't get it. One of the two. I just remember that they're used for some cancer research."

She kicked a rock further down the road they were travelling on. "Poor little things. I remember there was a university that did an amount of medical research, specifically on genetic research. They put up a rather cute monument to the millions of animals that have died in the name of science. A little old mouse, like an old man, with a lab coat and glasses and knitting DNA."

"Sounds cute," Jackson says. "Wasn't that in Russia though?"

Andy is surprised. Someone, at least, reads a few magazines about more than guns and women. "Yeah. Novisi, Noski, Novski, something Novi and then -bursk. Something Russian." She smiles. "You know, at one point I decided I was going to learn Russian. Then Jeff told me Chinese was better if I wanted a government job."

Simmons is walking ahead of her, so his face is obscured but his voice is sing-song. "But don't you know that only _dirty_ traitors learn other languages?" He swings and cocks his hips to the side like he's dancing so that he can twist and look back at her and give a teasing smile.

"Is that right?" She returns playfully. "I gave up after two lessons. Couldn't do the sounds right."

Jackson chimes in with a dirty joke. Andy looks away, smiling. The scenery is better now, in her opinion. The air was cleaner, too. No more pollution from factories and cities to cloy the air and fill it with toxins. The radiation had mostly faded, but pockets still remained. For the most part, the trees seemed to be drinking in what remained of the old-world pollution and pouring sweet oxygen back into the world.

Their little column moves off of the main road down a smaller path. It's dirt, created by the wearing of foot traffic than by any pavement. The undergrowth is closer to them now, and the rustling of leaves is louder when the wind blows, or small animals move about.

"The Abernathy farm is up this way a bit. A few miles and we'll be there," the Sergeant announced. Sergeant Whent is a very self-assured man, tall and broad. The type that know exactly how much damage he could do to someone but feels no need to broadcast or announce it to anyone.

The road up to the farm was narrow but well tread. It wound around slightly but for the most part continued in a straightforward manner to its destination. After a bit, it opened into an open field with a large shanty-house built around the base of an overhead power line. Sprawling around the house were plots of different crops, some in harvest, others empty in the late season. A couple of dogs ran out barking loudly to great them. Multiple kids were running around, some working, others playing.

Sergeant Whent raised his hand in greeting to a big burly man with red hair and a full red beard who came out to greet them. "Abernathy! It's good to see you again," Whent said.

Abernathy, who must be the father, claps Whent on the back. "Good ta see the raiders haven't got you yet," he easily replies. Looking around he seems to be surprised to see Andy with the group. "Ah, I don't think I've introduced myself. I'm Blake Abernathy, this is my homestead."

Andy returns his handshake with a firm grip. "Andy Smithwright," she returns. "Nice to meet you."

Abernathy ushers them up to the porch of the house and has one of his kids bring out some coffee for them. Andy notes that he didn't invite them inside. Polite but wary. Sergeant Whent and Abernathy start into a conversation about news, what they've heard from various other villages and farms. Curious about the farm, Andy starts to wander around, looking at the different crops growing. Mostly cabbages, horseradish, squash, and what looks like potatoes. The vegetables growing though, look a little different. Mutations, maybe? Some of the leaves have abnormalities in the shapes. But the Abernathies are eating them and she can't see that any of the kids look sick. Gourds were a little misshapen from what they should be but most everything looked okay. While no one was looking she snapped off a few leaves and a fruit or two to take back and look at under a microscope. As she walked around, she also noted that at least a few of the kids were on the alert; at the top of the shanty-house was a rooftop patio built, probably to function as a watch post, and a 15-year-old boy was standing guard, rifle in his hands.

Meandering back to where the conversation was, Andy joined in after a bit, asking Abernathy about his growing practices, mentioning a few things that she knew would be relevant to his crops. At last, Whent and Abernathy started in on a conversation about what they have to trade and the prices they're willing to part with things for. Whent and Abernathy decided on prices, exchanged goods – and caps, that strange new jingling currency – and the Sanctuary Hills group said their goodbyes before heading out again.

When they were well on the road and she was confident that there was no way the Abernathy clan could overhear them, she fell in step with Whent. "That went well?" She said uncertainly.

Whent grunted in response. "It did, actually. Liasoning with local villages rarely goes well the first time, it's the repeated visits and trust slowly built up over time that creates the relationship."

"Local villages?" Andy scoffed.

"Laugh all you want, but these people aren't Americans anymore. Not in the sense that you or I are. The United States is dead, ground into the ashes of fallout. Whatever survived is mutated. Changed. Don't make the mistake of thinking that they're our allies just because they speak like you, Smithwright. This is a whole new world, and we're smack dab in the middle of hostile territory." Whent was dead serious. He had a point, too. Lack of communications, education, living on the edge of survival, whatever America had been, this wasn't it.

Chastised, she fell further back in the column.

The walk back to Sanctuary was uneventful. They skirted around the city of Concord, avoiding the crumbling buildings which they knew hosted a group of outlaws. It was dark by the time they dropped off some supplies from Abernathy Farm at the Red Rocket. When they reached the bridge across the river to Sanctuary, the lights of their outpost glowing across the water was such a welcome sight for Andy that her eyes started watering. Her feet hurt and were cold, her shoulders and back hurt, and she didn't think she could feel her toes anymore. She did her best to not let it show, no one else complained, but she wasn't used to this kind of hiking around.

To Andy's chagrin, they didn't immediately split up to rest, instead going to The Garage to debrief. Her tired feet did thank her when she sat in a chair off to the side while Sergeant Whent informed Captain Jeffords of all that happened, mostly to do with the news he and Blake Abernathy had discussed. Jeffords didn't ask her any questions just as she had assumed. She tried to keep her mind engaged on what was going on and being said, but it just kept slipping and her eyes were starting to close on their own. At last, they were dismissed, and Andy stumbled her way back to her house where Aida would hopefully be waiting with a hot meal.

* * *

Several months later, Spring was fast approaching. It was late March, edging in to April. Two of the ruined houses in Sanctuary that had little more than the framing left had been turned into impromptu greenhouses in which she had set to work starting seedlings to be transplanted later. Other vegetables which were hardier were able to start in the gardens outside. Parsnips, carrots, radishes, and spinach were in the ground either freshly planted or making little sprouts. Most of the other crops were in the greenhouse still, the ground too cold for them. Most of the planting was just her, Aida, and another Mr. Handy named Jacques.

Sanctuary itself was also like a plant that had lain dormant over the winter and was starting to grow as well. Captain Jeffords careful efforts over the winter to secure extra food had worked and they had made it through without coming close to starving. There were one or two close calls where they were looking at starting to stretch their rations thin when they were able to either procure a shipment of food from passing traders or retrieve it themselves. Although they didn't always state what the meat was from.

Uncle Jeff had started several projects to measure the radiation in the environment now that the essentials of water and generators for the outpost were up and running and didn't need his constant hand anymore. One that Andy and several of the soldiers had been assisting him with was measuring Strontium 90 levels to see how much had decayed. If the only initial fallout had been from the bombs falling, it should have decayed to be only .78%, give or take a little, of its original levels. How much of that would still be a problem, Jeff had tried to explain, but she wasn't really able to follow. Suffice to say, she was helping to gather the data points: baby teeth.

When Jeff had told Captain Jeffords that he wanted to collect baby teeth from the children of settlers Jeffords looked like he was about ready to laugh in Jeff's face, until Jeff explained that baby teeth was a good way to see what levels of Strontium 90, one of the biggest radioactive fallout particles were left over. Strontium 90 chemically acts like Calcium and the human body, especially bones, will absorb it and use it to build bones with along with calcium if its available. And since children aren't as likely to be exposed to random pockets of radiation as much as adults were and they didn't have to wait for anyone to die to get it – well it was a much easier and more humane way to look for ambient radiation levels.

Abernathy and his horde of children were the first ones Andy asked for samples. Connie, Abernathy's wife, had seized on the opportunity to get a hold of some supplies she deemed essential. After a funny look and an explanation of what Strontium 90 was, she promised to hand over any baby teeth in exchange any pencils Andy could bring her. She was teaching all of the children basic literacy as well as what she could give them of an education, and pencils for them to write with were rare. The two women so far were quite satisfied with the exchange.

In fact, where Sergeant Whent had run into a wall with the Abernathys, Andy had slipped around the wall in the form of Connie. The two had formed something of a friendship, and that had, in turn, softened Abernathy himself. Andy started to let Connie borrow textbooks and novels from time to time for her to first read for herself and then use to teach her children. Andy marveled at how quickly education had gone out the door, and the changes that wrought in people when they didn't have access to it. Knowledge, in some ways, became a major commodity in and of itself.

Once a steady relationship had been established with the Abernathys, it became much easier to reach out to other farms and homesteads. Andy's knowledge about plants had led to her starting up a planting guide for basic crops when she realized that a lot of the information about how to raise different crops had been lost, leading most settlers to raise only the hardiest of crops that could very well grow wild without them there. The Abernathys had done better than most; Connie's grandmother of some 8 or 9 generations past had owned a gardening guide that had survived the bombs a few generations in, and the knowledge therein had been passed down. They had larger and more bountiful crops than most in the Commonwealth. Connie was helping Andy with the terminology for the guide; there were still a few variables like reading levels that she had to overcome when writing the guide.

When Andy realized how important the knowledge of crops was, she had started collecting and overwriting old holotapes to make into soft copies of plant anthologies and planting guides. As it was, all it would take was a bullet and a quick fire to destroy Sanctuary's knowledge. Most of the holotapes she was using originally held useless things; store inventories, business records, and other things from 200 years ago. She was making stashes of them in various places. Several of them she sent to more remote farms such as Greygarden or hidden under the floorboards of a remote hunting cabin in the woods between the Abernathy farm and Sanctuary. Hopefully, if Sanctuary were ever attacked and burned down, they wouldn't lose all that they currently knew. Aida was mostly helping her in that, spending most night flipping through books and recording them onto her memory banks ready to transfer to holotapes.

Honestly, almost none of what they were doing would have been possible without the robots. While the former Vault Dwellers had to sleep, eat, rest, the robots were under no such restrictions. With the appropriate guidance and commands, the robots could work all day and night until they needed maintenance, or their tasks were completed. So much of their survival energy would be spread out to the basics that they probably wouldn't have the running water and electricity set up to the extent that they currently did. In fact, the Vault Dwellers would most likely have died during the Winter and not even lived to see the Springtime.

There were a few in Sanctuary Hills who argued that they should try to make contact with Diamond City and the other larger settlements in the Commonwealth like Goodneighbor and Bunker Hill in order to bring in more supplies. Others wanted no part of it, mostly the soldiers who had seen what could happen with the roving bands of raiders who wandered from place to place, taking up residence wherever they could strongarm their way into. And, since the soldiers outnumbered the civilians, the democratic choice was to not make contact. Andy herself, was split. On one hand, she really did want to see what passed for cities now in what remained of the world, but on the other, she had seen herself the aftermath of a few raider attacks when she went on what she had jokingly termed her 'diplomatic missions.' At one point, the squad she was with had detoured to check out a plume of black smoke near Concord. What they found was the burned-out remains of a homestead charred to a crisp, the burned remains of three bodies inside, and the tortured remains of a settler out front. His skin had been flayed from his body, likely while he was still alive. Whent had immediately directed Andy and two others to take cover and radio back to Sanctuary Hills what they had found while the rest of the squad went on a hunting mission. She had been sent immediately back to Sanctuary as soon as they verified that the area was clear, and the raiders gone.

Whent and the rest of the squad returned five days later. When they did, they refused to tell anyone besides the Captain what they had found when they caught up to the raider who had done it.

* * *

 **A/N: It's been a while, but here's an update!**


End file.
